Then it is to be seized by implacable jaws and swiftly run with about
the yard in a feverish pretence that enemies wish to ravish it from its
captor. Any chance observer is implored to humor this pretence, and upon
his compliance he is fled from madly, or perhaps turned upon and growled
at most directly, if he show signs of losing interest in the game.
This ceaseless motion, with its attendant nervous strains, has prevented
any accumulation of flesh, and explains the name of Slim Jim affixed to
him by my namesake.
Jim consented now to rest for a moment at my feet, though at a loss to
know how I could be calm amid so many exciting smells. I promised him as
he lay there that he should never be compelled to learn any but the
fewest facts necessary to make him as harmless as he was happy; chiefly
not to bark at old ladies and babies, no matter how threatening their
aspect, as they passed our house. A few things he had already
learned--to avoid fences of the barbed wire, to respect the big cat from
across the way who sometimes called and treated him with watchful
disdain, and not to chew a baby robin if by any chance he caught one.
This last had been a hard lesson, his first contact with a problem only
a few days younger than Eden itself.
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